Dear Friends:

Fishing on the Kenai

After mentioning at the end of my July newsletter about Hilmer Kiser and how his daughter, Ida, had gone to great effort to get a waiver for her dad so he could fish the Kenai River using bait in order to catch a king salmon, I thought you might like to see that her mission was accomplished

and Hilmer caught a chrome-bright 55 lb. king salmon yesterday (7/11) on a picture perfect day. He was one happy and weary fisherman! For those who might happen to be familiar with the river, he caught the fish just below Honeymoon Cove, one of his favorite spots. Interestingly, word on the river is that the Fish and Game guys are planning to close the river to king fishing altogether on Monday! Congratulations Hilmer!

Grizzly in the yard

Another “big event” happened last night as well. Marveen was heading out into the back yard and just happened to glance out the window first to discover a big ol’ grizzly (brown) bear ambling across the yard. Thankfully, she didn’t go out there a minute earlier or she’d have run right into the big fella. And, thankfully, he didn’t linger there long as he was probably on the trail of the cow and calf moose that have spent several weeks in our back yard. Moose is their food of choice right now until salmon become more plentiful. Unfortunately, he was moving too fast for Marveen to snap a picture.

Soldotna crash kills 10

On a sadder note, I know it made the national news this past week when there was a plane crash in Soldotna killing ten people including the pilot. He did not attend our church but a large number of his family do. We were with his mother just minutes after she was told. Hard stuff. He was a very well known and respected person in this area so his funeral will be Saturday afternoon at their hangar. I will be doing the opening of that service and then go across Kachemak Bay to do the graveside service on Monday. Your prayers would be appreciated for all the families that this tragedy touched.

God bless you!

Wayne Coggins